Jeff Bridich has stepped down as general manager of the Colorado Rockies.
Bridich was in his seventh season as the club’s general manager, bringing him to a grand total of 17 seasons with the Rockies. In October of 2014, Bridich was promoted to GM of the team after Dan O’Dowd and Bill Geivett stepped down.
After being hired, before that year’s trade deadline, Bridich traded shortstop Troy Tulowitzki after the two disagreed on how to build the team moving forward to contend for a World Series. Tulowitzki was traded to Toronto for a number of prospects that never panned out.
While serving as general manager of the Rockies, Bridich took Colorado to the playoffs in back-to-back years for the first time in franchise history in 2017 and 2018. During that span, Bridich decided to spend the most money any team has ever spent on a bullpen, but that fizzled out after just a year.
The Harvard graduate would eventually take a playoff team and run them into the ground after he decided to not offer gold glove winning second-baseman D.J. LeMahieu a contract extension and allowed him to hit the open market. LeMahieu wound up signing with the New York Yankees for just $24 million over two-years.
Bridich would then sign free agent second-baseman Daniel Murphy for the exact same contract to play first base, but he ultimately turned out to be arguably the worst first-baseman in the baseball. LeMahieu on the other hand played some first base and became a MVP candidate for New York.
Nolan Arenado who has become arguably the best player in baseball over the past few seasons also grew frustrated with Bridich over the years. Arenado signed the largest contract in team history and was promised that the franchise would spend money and continue to compete for a championship, but that obviously didn’t happen.
It had been reported that Bridich even told Arenado that he needed to play better and be a better leader for the team. This came after Arenado won yet another Gold Glove and Silver Slugger.
With trade rumors swirling, Bridich then traded away Arenado to the St. Louis Cardinals along with $50 million. In return, the Rockies didn’t even get back a top-10 prospect from within the Cardinals organization.
The trade will be remembered as potentially the worst trade in MLB history, right up there with the Boston Red Sox trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees.
Bridich wasn’t the most liked general manager the media liked to cover after being rude and arrogant during Zoom calls and press conferences.
Fans in Colorado were calling for Bridich’s job after the Arenado trade went down and were even willing to boycott games until changes were made. It’s safe to say Rockies fans will be pleased with this development.
Bridich would finish his tenure with an overall record of 493-566, with a winning percentage of .466.
The Rockies released a statement earlier today saying, “The organization will be appointing an interim General Manager for the remainder of the season, and they will conduct a search for a permanent General Manager once the 2021 MLB postseason has completed.”
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